Julia's Dream About Quilting, Sewing & Crafting

Solda, my second home, Christmas day. What a vacation! Happy New Year! I'm very hopeful for this 2018, so many things that I want to accomplish. Also in my quilting journey! I already wrote down a list of goals, which include starting to design my own patterns. It's something I've been thinking for months, so I'm eager to try it. Sneak Peek! This was gifted for Christmas. I am pretty sure about the first pattern I want to write. It's something simple but useful that I've already made twice as gifts. I don't even own one LOL! So next one is going to be mine. It's not something incredible or new, but I like it a lot and also I think it will help me learn to write tutorials and it will be an easy and friendly beginner pattern for everyone. No spoilers, just a sneak peek! Yay for hexagons, Katja Marek and EPP! I also really want to focus more on EPP (English Paper Piecing) because I love to sew by hand. It's also a nice wa...

Pic of the work in progress: my black nail polish was also very fitting the theme! Hi! My name is Julia and this is my way too much neglected blog. I wonder, would this be the turning point? Maybe. Or maybe not. But I love to share my love for quilting and creating with the world, so here I am. I love Halloween. Even though I live in Italy and this is not originally part of my tradition, it's still something I feel deeply connected to. I guess it has something to do with my year as an exchange student in Vermont: I lived Halloween for real, on my own skin, even partecipating to an Halloween musical in the woods at night with a path of carved and glowing pumpkins so something sticked with me. I've seen quite a lot Hexagon Halloween quilts all over the web and I gave a look to some tutorials. It did seem like a pretty cool project but everything was way too colorful for me this time (THIS TIME: I love colors! The brightest the better) so I fixed my mind on a black and whit...

Block 1 to 5 - Number 4 is my own personal variation of the original appliquè block I love sew-alongs. Discovered them last year (2016) and opened a whole new world of learning new techniques and meeting friends!  My first one was the Splendid Sampler by Pat Sloan and Jane Davidson. Block 1 - with QAYG Right now I'm in love with this new one, it just started, today block 6 just came out and it's so pretty!  This sew along is weekly, every Wednesday a new block is uploaded! Block 5 - Coronation by Lisa Bongean I am loving this sew along so much. All my online quilting friends are doing it! I challenged myself to make the blocks only with 4 fabrics of the same line from Kansas Trouble and it's absolutely amazing. Block 3 - Four X I initially started to Quilt-As-You-Go my blocks but I'm not sure I'm loving it so I've decided to stop. I will remake the first 3 blocks and probably this will become fancy mug rugs! Happy sew...

Happy New Year! 2017 just started and I really hope this one will be a good one. At least I hope it will be better than 2016.   I started the day with some sewing! This is block 2 of Pat Sloan's Solstice Challenge, it's so much fun, this is a 12' block and I LOVE IT! I think I found my fav block in the whole quilting world! This evening I will clean my sewing machine from an intensive month of Christmas gifts sewing... she deserves it! :)

  Long time no see. I'm terrible at keeping this little blog updated. Anyway, Halloween is gone and I had fun celebrating it in my Splendid Sampler blocks!   This year I finally had the chance to buy some pretty cute Halloween fabrics so I had some cute material! The ghost and the eyes of the spiders are GLOW IN THE DARK!   Right now I'm working on Christmas gifts and Christmas stuff. Every year my family donates some money to Unicef plus my MIL makes the most adorable Christmas decorations to donate to their booth to raise money. This year I am making zipper pouches for them to sell, I really hope it helps them raise money for the children. My goal is to make at least 10 zipper pouches! Have a lovely Monday of joy and sewing!

I'm currently following the Splendid Sampler sew along by Pat Sloan and Jane Davidson. Although I'm a little behind since I have not made all the past blocks already I enjoy the journey and all it has been teaching me :) Since we just surpassed the 50th block, during the week of turning over the half of this amazing project there was a celebration with a lot of giveaways. Well I actually WON something! I cannot believe it! I won the PERFECT BOX OF COLORS by Pat Sloan of AURIFIL THREAD! How sweet! Each spool contains 1300 mt and there are 12 spools inside!!! I'm so thrilled and grateful! Block 49 - Summer's Gift Meantime allow me to show some of my latest blocks of the Splendid Sampler! I'm doing mine Scrappy but I also making a Sewing themed version of some blocks for a wall hanging for my sewing corner and a Christmas version of some other blocks (so basically I should end with three quilts of different sizes :D ) Block 48 - Whim in all three versions ...

My Quilt Top for QuiltForPulse initiative Long time no see. I'm a terrible blogger who suffers the heat of summer so badly this is the second summer I lost track of my posts and become absent. A close-up of my quilt top. Can you tell I love polka dots? As you know in June there was a horrible act of violence and hate when a man went shooting in Pulse club in Orlando. Many lives were lost, many more were injured.  The Orlando Modern Quilt Guild started the Quilt for Pulse initiative to make quilts for the families that lost their loved ones and for the injured and than, as quilts would be distribuited, to the people who helped  and to the LGBT community. When there is so much hate and sorrow I would always want to do something. To give at least something  to the people that were hurt . Finally I could. I made this quilt top (there was the choice to make blocks, quilt tops or complete quilts) using white on white fabric and the brightest colors of the r...

Hello! Summer is here, at least theoretically since today it was a delightful cold day with a lot of rain (can you guess I'm not that fond of heat and hot weather?) and I want to share this colorful baby quilt I made this spring. This baby quilt has a long story behind. It's for the baby boy a couple of dear friends had in January. Initially I wanted to make a sea themed appliqué quilt but I ran out of time doing another baby quilt. Then I tried making a quilt with a panel. I wasn't satisfied. Then I discovered this lovely pattern! The pattern belongs to Samelia's Mum blog:  http://www.sameliasmum.com/2014/09/bluebird-park-baby-quilt-pre-cut.html#.V2jLyvmLRD8 Isn't it pretty? A lovely way to show off some colorful pretty fabrics! I had so much fun sewing this baby quilt. I enjoyed every moment of it! I learned a lot and I had fun all the way. I enjoyed quilting on my Pfaff sewing machine, I enjoyed very much to sew the binding on it with a decorative ...

Photo taken at Westman Islands I've been in Iceland for the past two weeks. Sorry for not writing as I should have done, I wanted to make a quick post thru my tablet but the trip was very demanding physically and I just couldn't focus on it :) Skogafoss This was a dream trip for my husband and for me. We love adventures and we love to hike and to explore new places. Iceland was all of this and so much more! A Glacier Lagoon We saw amazing things, we ate great food, we saw whales, puffins, thousands of birds... it was breathtaking! Skalanes This is just a quick back. In the next posts I'll tell you more about my trip and the quilting involved <3

Death Star EPP Pillow - Gift for a friend Hello! This time I waited until today, Tuesday, to have these pictures to show because I couldn't have them before :) Pattern is not mine. It's quirky granola girl and here is the link:  Death Star When I first saw this project I decided to give it a try. I was very excited! I love some handsewing! It was a bit hard for me, a lot of small pieces and curves so I admit I put together a couple of pieces to be more comfortable. But I really enjoyed the process! I had quite fun machine quilting the Death Star. I wanted some texture so I used a cotton batting I really love. I tried to give different texture to it. The gift has been gifted and my friend loved it! Yay! Always happy to sew a gift to a friend who appreciates it!

Block 1 - Hearts Aflutter by Pat Sloan This week I want to talk about this wonderful project created by Pat Sloan and Jane Davidson, two wonderful quilters! Block 2 - Wings by Jane Davidson I discovered this Sew Along following Pat Sloan's quilting classroom page on Facebook. I was immediately excited so I decided to give it a try. I'm doing my blocks SCRAPPY. Block 3 - Lots of love by Melissa Corry Block 5 - Simple Simon by Celine Perkins It's a free Sew Along with a total of 100 blocks. Each week two blocks are released, one on Thursday and one on Sunday. It started on 14th February 2016. Block 7 - Snug as a Bug by Amy Sinibaldi This is truly a marvellous learning experience. I get to try a lot of new techniques, I discover new quilters I didn't know about, I'm inspired by what other quilters create and post on the dedicated Facebook page... it's amazing!! Block 8 - Friends around the square by Julie K...

Hi everyone! I've abandoned this lovely blog of mine for almost an year, but I've decided it's time to start writing on it again. Life has been difficult in the past months but now I'm going to turn things for the best! What is funny is that my latest post was a gift for a friend (the blue bag with the blue zipper pouch) and now this new post is also a gift for that very same friend! :) It's an armchair organizer with an hexagons pocket and a removable pincushion! I admit I was inspired by a lot of pictures of different organizers I saw online (especially on Pinterest) but I used my own inspiration to create this final piece. Detail of the backing. Using the blanket stitch for sewing the front of the binding was inspired by Pat Sloan, I've seen her using this stitch for this exact same use and I thought it was a great idea! The idea is to have something to keep everything together and organized while sewing on the couch or on an armchair. Whil...

Happy Sunday to everybody!     This is my third bag of the year! Guess to prove it I should show the other two... I'll do it some other time. I made this for a friend's birthday, she's a quilter like me and she loves blue, so of course the color picking was so easy when I saw this fabric on the shelves of the shop where I work! I love this bamboo handlers. It was so fun to hand sew the fabric part that holds them! For that I used transparent thread because I wanted it to be an invisible seam!   The outer fabric is a quilting cotton fabric "Essentials" by Wilmington Prints. The inside is a cotton fabric I bought in a fabric store which I immediately loved! It's so charming!   As you can see it's the perfect pattern to have 2 bags in one! Yay!   And here we have a matching boxie pouch to have a set. I think this fabric is gorgeous because it has a lot of lovely shades of light and dark blue. Truly g...